PVI baseball

O'Connell Loses to Gonzaga, PVI Advances to Title Game

By David Steinbacher
Special to the HERALD
(From the Issue of 5/10/07)

The Paul VI Panthers of Fairfax defeated top-ranked St. John's 5-0 to capture the 2007 WCAC baseball championship. Junior Mike Mitchell pitched a one-hitter and Zach Costello hit two solo home runs to lead the Panthers to victory.

In earlier WCAC action, Bishop O’Connell Knights barely missed a chance to advance to the WCAC baseball semifinals this week, while PVI shut out eighth-seeded Bishop Ireton and then defeated Gonzaga in a semi-final matchup on May 8 to advance to the title game.

Fifth-seeded O’Connell fell with a tough 6-5 loss to fourth-seeded Gonzaga Monday at Hamilton Field in Washington. With the loss, O’Connell dropped to 12-10 overall, and 9-7 in WCAC regular season play.
With the game tied 3-3 early in the top of the third inning, O’Connell’s designated hitter senior David Snell singled home sophomore shortstop Zach Tessier to give the Knights a 4-3 advantage.
Despite allowing two walks in the bottom of the third, O’Connell senior hurler Kyle Scallion retired the Eagles without allowing a run.
The Knights generated another run in the top of the fourth inning when senior catcher Peter Gadell led off with a sharp single to right field. Senior first baseman Nick Cabrera’s infield single put runners on first and second.
Two batters later, senior left fielder Kyle Koger drew a walk to load the bases. With one out, Tessier grounded into third base, scoring freshman pinch-runner Beau Fitzpatrick who was running for Gadell, to keep O’Connell on top.
The Eagles generated one run of their own in the bottom of the fourth inning to narrow the gap.
In the top of the fifth, Knights senior third baseman Sean Donnelly singled, but O’Connell could not generate a run. Scallion retired the Eagles in order in the bottom of the inning.
In the top of the sixth, O’Connell generated four singles but did not score. Following a leadoff single by Gadell, Fitzpatrick entered the game as a pinch runner and was subsequently picked off first base by Eagle relief pitcher Eric Rehbein.
With one out, Cabrera blooped a single to center field, senior center fielder Christian Leary singled to center, and two batters later Tessier reached base with an infield single to third.
With the bases loaded, Scallion, the senior right hander who bats left-handed, flew out to left field, and the Knights stranded three base runners.
In the bottom of the sixth, the first two Gonzaga players reached base with singles, but Scallion retired the next three batters with two ground outs and a fly out.
With O’Connell still holding onto a precarious 5-4 lead in the top of the seventh, Rehbein allowed a single to sophomore right fielder Colin Milon, and retired the next three batters without allowing a run.
The Knights’ semi-final hopes were quashed in the bottom of the seventh inning.
Knights’ third baseman Sean Donnelly threw out Rehbein at first base after a hard hopper to record the first out. The next Eagle batter reached first base thanks to an error by Donnelly. The following batter doubled down the right field line to give the Eagles runners on second and third with one out.
After a conference on the mound between O’Connell Head Coach Rick Hart, Scallion, Gadell and the rest of the infield, Scallion continued to pitch the inning.
The next Eagle batter bunted safely down the first base line to score the tying run and position runners on first and third.
Scallion retired the next Gonzaga batter with a ground out for the second out of the inning.
The final Eagle batter of the day smacked a line drive to right field scoring the winning run, and O’Connell headed back to Arlington wondering how they came so close to victory.
On the day, Gonzaga had six runs, 10 hits and no errors, while O’Connell had five runs, 14 hits and three errors.
O’Connell might now move on to the Virginia Independent State playoffs.
In the other WCAC quarter-final contests Monday, top-seeded Paul VI Catholic turned back eighth-seeded Bishop Ireton 7-0. Ireton, coached by Rich McCoppin, won the play-in game versus Bishop McNamara last week to advance to the match up with PVI.
The Panthers, who finished the WCAC regular season 14-2, earned their top-seeded position by defeating third-seeded DeMatha twice during the regular season. The St. John’s Cadets, who finished the WCAC regular season with an identical record, had split their regular season games with DeMatha.
On Monday, PVI struck for three runs in the bottom of the first inning against Ireton and never looked back. In the bottom of the first, Peter Verdin was hit by a pitch and then Matt Murakami walked. John Ralston singled to right which scored Verdin. Two batters later, Greg Wiegand singled to left-center, to put the Panthers ahead 2-0. Zach Costello singled to left to score Ralston and push PVI to 3-0 over Ireton.
The Panthers added three more runs in the third inning and one more run in the fifth inning. Starting right-handed pitcher Reed Bromley went five innings with five strikeouts, and logged the win.
“My fastball, changeup and curve ball were all working well tonight,” Bromley said.
Tyler Costello pitched the final two innings and registered four strikeouts.
PVI finished with seven runs, nine hits and zero errors, while Ireton finished with zero runs, two hits and one error.
With the victories over Ireton and Gonzaga, PVI improved to 25-3 overall on the season while Ireton dropped to 6-18.